Yari Montella takes the World Supersport victory, closing in on the championship standings.

Yari Montella took the most important victory of his career to date, in race 2 at Magny Cours with title rival Adrian Huertas in third.

A stella ride from the Italian, saw him win after starting sixth on the grid and close Huertas’ lead to just 14 points with four rounds and 200 points still to play for.

Stefano Manzi ran Montella close and lead laps 14-16 and remained in the fight right until the chequered flag, finishing just 0.171 behind at the conclusion of the 19 lap race. With Huertas finishing just over a second behind the leading pair to take his twelfth podium of the season, Manzi’s title hopes appear to be dimming as the Italian is now fifty points behind the Spaniard in the standings.

If Manzi’s championship hopes are fading away then Frenchman Valentin Debise’s aspirations appear to be over. The home hero started the weekend within 100 points of the lead but after a poor tyre choice in race 1, things went from bad to worse in race 2 as a crash with fellow home rider Lucas Mahias ended both of their races in devastating fashion. Although Debise was lucky to appear unscathed, Mahias was later declared Mahias with a A/C joint separation and fractured collarbone.

Behind the leading trio, British rider Tom Booth-Amos took the best result of his World Supersport career in forth place aboard his PTR Triumph. The 28 year old hailing from Newport in Shropshire improved his previous result of fifth which he achieved in the second race at Donington Park earlier this season. After the dust had settled on the weekend, delighted PTR Triumph team manager Simon Buckmaster addressed the media and had the following to say about Booth-Amos and team-mate Ondrej Vostatek’s weekend. “Race one was wet in places and drying. To be honest we are a little bit disappointed with ninth for Tom and in those conditions Ondrej always struggles.  But for race two we went for the harder rear tyre, it is perfect for us and Tom rode a really good race for fourth place.  We just need one more to get to the podium.  I’m really happy for everyone, for all the effort the whole team put in because it’s not just about each side of the garage, the team work together as a great unit.  Big thanks to everybody in the team, to Devis at Bitubo and Triumph racing.  It’s a great result for us and we go to Cremona in a confident way.”

“Ondrej just missed out on a point but he rode so much better than he did in race one and he should take that confidence to Cremona.  Looking forward to the next race because they are coming thick and fast now.”

Jorge Navarro and Glen Van Straalen completed the top six, with wild-card Corentin Perolari an impressive seventh. Race 1 winner, Niki Tuuli could only manage eighth while pole sitter Can Oncu dropped to ninth despite remaining as high as third until the fourth lap. Completing the top 10 was the MV Augusta of Marcel Schroetter, the German finished on the podium in all of the first four races of the 2024 season, but hasn’t finished higher than sixth in any of the 12 races since and now sits fifth in the championship.

Australian Oli Bayliss leaves France with a double 11th place finish while Scotland’s John Mcphee scored 4 points with a solid 12th place to leave him placed 15th in the championship. Completing the pointscorers were the winner of the 2019 Moto3 Qatar Grand Prix – Kaito Toba, Bayliss’ team-mate and fellow Australian Tom Edwards and 22 year-old Polish prodigy Piotr Biesiekirski in 13th, 14th and 15th places respectively.

Federico Caricasculo and Bahattin Sofuoglu both crashed out of contention, while Chinese manufacturer QJ Motor’s wait for a debut point continues as sole rider Raffaele De Rosa finished a distant 28th lapping 3 seconds a lap slower than the leaders.

Featured Image: WSBK.com